Street Bones
by Cora Lennox
Summary: Post Ptolemy's Gate, Nathaniel is not in fact dead, but strangely reincarnated as a street urchin in an attempt to teach him a lesson. It doesn't. He still can't keep his nose out of dangerous mysteries, political scandals, and summoning a certain djinn
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This first chapter is, I will admit, rather strange. Actually, it's probably strange to the point of absurdity. But I assure you, it will normal out shortly if you'll just bear with me.**

People wake up naked in small stone rooms face to face with a grumpy three headed dragon quite often, really. Of course, it's not a typical an occurrence as falling off a roof or spontaneously combusting, but in the widest scope of things it's not as uncommon as most people would think.

But Nathaniel didn't know this. So when he found himself waking up naked in a small stone room face to face with a grumpy three headed dragon, he was understandably surprised.

The first thing he did was let out a strangled sort of yelp and scrambled back against the opposite wall, away from the serpentine creature in front of him. It was sitting behind a tall oak desk.

Nathaniel threw an arm in front of his face in a reflexive attempt to defend himself, but the dragon didn't attack him as he had expected it to. Instead, it just drummed its glimmering black talons on the surface of the desk and studied him with three pairs of critical lizard eyes, as if bored and impatient.

The next thing Nathaniel did was blush. His arm snapped down from in front of his face to cover his nudity. Or at least the bit of him that made his nudity most obvious. Under the dragon's icy stare, he suddenly felt ashamed and uncouth. There was something very knowing about the reptile… something almost human…

"Good." The dragon said, utilizing the head in the middle, "You're awake. Now we may begin."

Nathaniel frowned. Now that the immediate overwhelming emotions of fear and humiliation were wearing off, confusion and annoyance began to set in as he realized how truly bizarre his situation was. "Begin what?" he snapped, "Where am I and what in hell's name is going on?"

The head on the right rolled its glassy eyes, "Why are they always _like _this?"

"You are in, what you mortals may perhaps know as… The Other Place." The dragon ended his last word with a dramatic sort of hiss.

Nathaniel scowled, "Come now." He said, "This is ridiculous. If you are Bartimeus attempting to play some childish and idiotic joke on me so soon after I tried to save your life then I swear-"

"BARTIMEUS!" The head on the left roared.

The head in the middle leaned forward to Nathatniel and hissed venomously, "How _dare _you! We are not that disgraceful excuse for a djinn! We are far more noble. Far more ancient."

Nathaniel flinched, resisting the urge to tremble as he watched the light flicker off the dragon's rows of white needle sharp teeth, "Ah," he said, "Erm, my mistake then. But you are, in fact, a demon, then?"

"Demon!" The head on the right spat, "We are more than that, mortal. So much more."

"I see…" Nathaniel said, trying to maintain an air of stoic superiority despite the fact that he was naked and a little light headed, "Well, if it _is _true that I am in The Other Place, as you seem to believe, I always pictured it as a little less… cold and dank."

"This is not truly the face of our home," The dragon in the middle said, "This is simply as we present it to you. Mortals find the true nature of The Other Place difficult to grasp."

"Ah." Nathaniel said, nodding slowly, "And may I ask why I am here? There are some pressing matters back in the world of mortals that could use my attention…"

The dragon head on the left chuckled, "They would not be helped by the attention of a dead man."

"Erm," said Nathaniel.

"You're dead," clarified the head on the right.

Nathaniel paled a bit, but he hadn't been altogether expecting not to die, so he wasn't terribly surprised. "Please," he said, "Don't tell me this is the afterlife."

"It's part of it," the center head of the dragon said, "But it's not where you'll be spending the rest of your death."

Nathaniel smiled with relief, "Ah," he said, "Good. I was getting worried there for a while."

"You should not cease in your worrying yet." The head on the left said, "Depending upon our judgment… where you _do _spend the remainder of your death could be considerably worse."

Nathaniel winced, nodding slowly, "So what happens then? You weigh my heart against a feather?"

The left head snorted, rolling it's eyes, "Please. Don't degrade us so. Such barbaric practices were abandoned long ago. We simply use our insights into the actions of your existence, your moral value, your motivations what you did and what you did not do…"

"All in all," said the head on the right, "It's not looking very good for you, I'm afraid."

Nathaniel gulped. He had always assumed he wouldn't have to deal for this sort of thing so soon. It wasn't fair; he hadn't _planned _to die young with very little morally correct actions to his name! He had always thought that, once he reached old age, he'd donate some large sum of money to an orphanage or something in his will and have the afterlife business (if there was any afterlife business) taken care of.

"I… I did great things for the sake of my country! I… I made many sacrifices for the, erm, many sacrifices for the good of my people." He said to the dragon.

The dragon snorted, "You made great sacrifices for your _reputation. _You made great sacrifices for all the other corrupted creatures you worked for."

"Well, it does sound bad when you put it that way…" Nathaniel grumbled. But he knew that the dragon was right. It was something he himself had felt niggling in the back of his head for most of his life as a magician, and it was something that he had worried over near obsessively in recent days…

"And then there is the fact that you aided a greedy institution that was little more than a machine for oppression and war… you enslaved other creatures against their will…" The dragon's center head continued.

"Demons? _That's _nothing!" Nathaniel protested, "Everyone has demons! That's what they're there for!"

The dragon's right head sighed heavily, "As hard as this may be for you to believe, _not _everyone enslaves demons because the vast majority of people on earth are, in fact, _not _magicians."

Nathaniel sighed. There was a flicker of something like sadness behind his eyes. "But… at the end…" he said, "I gave my life up for someone else. That counts for something, doesn't it?"

"Exactly," said the head on the left, "And that's what makes you such a peculiar case…"

"We're not sure just what needs to be done with you." Said the head on the right, "You certainly don't deserve to be rewarded… but eternal punishment doesn't seem to be in order either. It's a predicament, really. We deal with those like you occasionally… Perhaps…."

"We should give you another chance," finished the center head.

Nathaniel felt a slow, relieved smile creep across his face. "Yes!" he said, "Yes, thank you! I will live ten times better, I swear it! Never a cruel word to anybody; I'll free all my demons I'll-"

"Not so fast," The dragon's left head said with a low rasping chuckle, "It is not as simple as that. We're not sending you back to your life of leisure…"

Nathaniel frowned, "Then what are you going to do?"

The dragon told him.

Nathaniel scowled and clenched a fist indignantly, "That's ridiculous!" he said, "It sounds like the plot of a cheap novel! Don't tell me you've been reading Charles Pinderflick, that old windbag…"

The dragon discreetly flicked a copy of _The Miser Eliezer And the Ghosts of Mercy_ under his desk out of Nathaniel's view and said, "Of course not. We care not for such mortal foolery. Our judgments are based on only the most ancient wisdom and laws."

Nathaniel rolled his eyes, "It sounds like a penny novel to me… but fine then. Get it over with."

The dragon hissed something Nathaniel didn't quite understand, and then everything went black. He was getting rather tired of everything going black.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Sorry for the late update. I'd make an excuse but I don't have one, I'm just extraordinarily lazy.**

** This extraordinary laziness also manifests itself in the geography of this story. The places I mentioned did exist in London at some point, but I haven't the slightest idea where or if they were anywhere remotely near where I decided to put them. I might change it later, because I do plan to do a little more research.**

When Nathaniel woke up again, it was under even less desirable circumstances. That is to say, he was lying face down on something soggy and wet that smelled strongly of urine, his head felt like someone was hitting it with a sledge hammer from the inside out, and he had the odd sensation that his stomach was being poked with some sort of stick. He heard voices, but they sounded bleary and distance, like they were standing rooms away.

Nathaniel groaned experimentally. It created such a sharp pain behind his eyes that he thought he might vomit. He took a deep breath and debated whether or not it would be worth it to open his eyes.

He decided it wasn't. Maybe he'd just slip off to sleep, wake up back in his house in his silk pajamas, and none of this would ever have happened. Three headed dragons reading penny novels? Preposterous. Bartimeus? Who's he?

As the stick jabbing sensation got more fierce, and the voices got more louder (and more impatient sounding), however, Nathaniel was faced with little choice but to finally accept that this unpleasant state was reality and open his eyes.

He found himself looking up at three grubby, grim, and oddly foreboding looking faces.

One of the faces looked around sixteen, and coated in a layer of soot. It was most likely male, given the five little greasy hairs sprouting weakly off the chin. The last face was small, and wide, and more or less content looking, around ten years old.

The other was scowling at him ferociously. It wasn't entirely her fault. She had a pair of eyebrows so thick and long that scowling was all but inevitable. But Nathaniel couldn't help but wish she was making some sort of effort to not appear as though she wanted his head on a pike. He also wished she'd stop poking him with the stick.

"Stoppit…" he muttered, sitting up slowly, the land around him spinning, " 'M awake."

" 'e's awake!" the girl with the eyebrows said, tugging on the sleeve of the boy, who had been staring vaguely at the grey sky, "Bill, 'e woke up!"

The black faced boy that must have been Bill looked down.

Nathaniel was able to take in enough of his surroundings to know that he was in some grubby, godforsaken back alley that no respectable person would ever be caught dead near. But, he supposed, if what the dragon had told him was true… this was indeed the case.

The people surrounding him were obviously of the rabble vein that he would usually kick aside in the street, but under the circumstances… he had to admit that they perhaps had the upper hand. Oily politeness would be most efficient in this situation.

"And who might you fine young people be?"

The urchins gave him a slow, collective baffled stare, as if they weren't entirely sure the was talking to them. The boy looked over his shoulder to see if there were any fine young people behind him that Nathaniel could be referring to, before turning back and saying, with a wary gaze, "Bill."

"Bill…" Nathaniel said, smiling the false palstery smile of one with dealings in polities, "Nice to meet you, Bill, and who's the little, erm, the little creature over there? That one sticking the insects up its nose?"

The smallest member of the party, which was more or less a matted grubby head perched atop a round mass of misshapen garmets, had wandered off to the side, and was crouched on the cobblestones, putting some beetles through a unique kind of torment.

"That's Bit."

"Erm, Bit, yes." Nathaniel said, giving the child a congenial nod. Always nod congenially to the citizens… it looks good. Empty compliments went pretty far too."Bit's obviously a strong strapping young-" he paused, biting his lip, "I mean, such an adorable, charming little… such a nice child."

Nathaniel cast the genderless wad of clothing one last befuddled look before turning to the severe looking girl with the stick, "And who might you be, miss?"

The girl's split lip raised in a snarl as she heard him address her as miss, making her face look even more frightening, "M'name's Lovely?"

Nathaniel blinked, "You're name is… Lovely?"

"Yeah."

"The adjective 'Lovely' is, in face, your name?"

"Yeah," the girl said.

Before Nathaniel's manners could stop his reflexes, he asked, "_Why?_

To Nathaniel's relief (he shuddered to think what that girl could do with the stick should she _really _get angry. He was fairly certain his side was bruised as it was. And as to what sort of weaponry she kept under that ragged trench coat… it was a truly frightening prospect.) Lovely didn't take offense. She simply gave a slow long shrug and said, "Aint my fault."

Nathaniel nodded slowly, then stood up on his jellied legs, leaning against the brick wall beside him for support. He was rather distraught to discover that, instead of towering over the children as he expected to, he only came just a bit above Lovely's chin. Stupid dragon.

"Well," he said, "Do you mind telling me… where exactly I, well, am?" he asked.

"Dorset street," said Lovely in a thickly slurred accent, "Just a little south of Bluegate Fields."

Nathaniel groaned. Of course. Well, at least his throat wasn't slit yet. But, he reminded himself, it still wasn't too late for that at all. Best to be friendly, no matter how low the company in these conditions. Actually, in these conditions, it was best to be friendlier the lower the company.

"Ah," he said, "Nice little, erm, residential district yes?"

"You talk fancy," said Lovely, "If you didn't look worse'n I do an' smell like piss I'd think you were rich or sommat. Best be careful with that."

While Nathaniel couldn't refute the fact that there was a certain ammonic odor clinging to him, but… "I do not look worse than you do!" he insisted indignantly. Manners were all well and good, but there was only so much one could take…

"You aint even got a shirt on." Lovely said.

Nathaniel looked down and raised his eyebrows, "Oh…" he said quietly, "So I haven't…" while he was no longer completely naked (thank goodness…) he was still without a shirt, revealing his intellectual's physique, which is to say, his ribs, sunken chest, and practically blue pale skin.

"Someone prolly took it," Lovely said with a small shrug.

"Took it?" Nathaniel asked, "Stole it, you mean?"

"Nah," Lovely said, "The other kind of took it. Yeah, they stole it."

"But… that's illegal!" Nathaniel said, "It's- it's… well, I suppose I could understand gold or something, but taking a shirt of a man's back while he's _sleeping! _It's, well, it's disgraceful!"

Lovely burst out laughing.

Bill gave him a pitying look through his soot, "You aint been 'ere long, 'ave you?"

"Today's my first day." Nathaniel said.

Bill nodded knowingly, "Just rolled in from the country, eh? Seekin' fame an' fortune in the big city?"

Nathaniel wrinkled his nose. "Of course not!" he snapped, "I'm, erm, a fallen member of the urban elite. A magician, at that." His manners were getting stretched thin, now, and his usual arrogant aloofness (which was behind all the false friendliness anyway) was beginning to rear its head again.

Bill opened his eyes wide in surprise, the whites bright against his coal black face.

"Damn liar!" snapped Lovely, brandishing her stick. "You aint no magician. Otherwise, you'd a called up a monster or sommat, 'ad 'im eat whoever pissed on you an' took your shirt."

Nathaniel chuckled the political chuckle he reserved for speaking to someone he felt was much stupider than him, "Summoning a demon is no small task, girl, I assure you that there are intricacies, deep and magical, to the process that you don't understand."

Lovely's eyebrows rotated until they were practically vertical, forming a fearsome scowl. Nathaniel began to think that perhaps he had said something wrong, he had to force himself to not utter an involuntary yelp as Lovely raised her stick, but was rescued when Jim pulled her over to the side.

Jim, it appeared, was a person inherently bad at whispering, and Nathaniel could hear nearly every word he said to Lovely. Most of it was along the lines of, _"Y'know that place up on the 'ill? Yeah… the one what with orl the screamin'?"_

The next few words were too quiet for Nathaniel to make out, but he could hear Lovely making sympathetic little "Ooo…" noises.

"_Reckon 'e must've wandered off or sommat…" _Bill continued.

Nathaniel scowled. He believed he could understand the gist of the conversation.

When Lovely turned back to him, she was wearing a large false grin. It was, Nathaniel mused, not unlike the large false grin he had warn earlier before he gave up any sort of polite conversation with these Cretans.

"Magician!" She crooned, in a voice that was probably meant to sound kind and consoling but, from Lovely, gave Nathaniel the eerie feeling that she was trying to lure him to her so she could hit him with something. "Of _course _you are!"

Nathaniel glowered at her. He felt his glower was rather insufficient when matched with what Lovely's eyebrows could deal out, but did his best anyhow. "I'll have you know." He said, "That I am quite sane."

"Of course you are!" Lovely purred. "A right magical magician, I'm sure of that."'

Bill grinned cautiously, "Right magical." He agreed.

Bit gurgled its approval.

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. "Fine. If you wish to believe me a lunatic, that's your loss. I care little, believe it or not, for the opinions of gutter rats."

The three gave him a long, calculating stare.

"Don't got a lot of self-confidence then, do you?" said Lovely eventually.

Nathaniel balled his fists and thrust what could be leniently called his chest out indignantly, "I _assure _you," he said, "That while I may resemble your crew in appearance,"

"And smell," Bill added.

Nathaniel ignored him, "That while I may resemble your crew in appearance, I am far more refined in terms of education, ability, and moral fiber. I am, you will do well to remember, a magician. It is only by a certain… unfortunate turning of events that I have come to be in such a desperate situation. I imagine it shouldn't last long."

Lovely's fingers were tightening around her stick.

Bill put a hand on her shoulder, "You got to excuse 'im, Lovely, 'e aint in 'is right mind."

Nathaniel was, presumably, about to again reassert his sanity… but then he saw someone walking down the alley towards them. The figure was wearing a long plain cloak that concealed his identity, and was clearly trying to look inconspicuous as he passed through the seedier streets. The figure was failing on a number of levels. For example, the cloak was obviously too expensive to be anything but temptingly conspicuous, and then there was the way he jumped back about a foot every time one of the raccoon sized rats scampered along in front of his path.

And then there was whatever was hanging from around the man's neck… it was clearly expensive as well.

And, Nathaniel noted, it was clearly _his! _

** Yeah… a lot of that was just talking, it turns out. I was trying to get a good feel for my characters. The next chapter will have more action, I promise. And it's from Bartimeus's POV! Which makes everything better, of course.**


	3. Chapter 3

You know, it's never anything fun anymore. It's been five years since the business with The Glass Palace gave my life any excitement at all.

It's never "Bartimeus! Oh great and terrible demon! You're the only one that can defeat the Dark Magician and reclaim the emerald of Angkor Wat!" No, no. Nowadays it's always, "Bartimeus stop humming that blasted song and go stop that starving child from robbing my cohort!"

Downright degrading, that is. Magician's these days. After all I've done for them- always looking for the chance to humiliate or eat them- and this is how they repay me! With menial labor. It makes one despair for the future, really.

So there I was, shuffling along the street to the scene of the disturbance. I could have just materialized there, of course, but what's the point of being sulky and reluctant if you can't drag your feet properly?

And anyhow, the street I was on was of the variety that really demanded shuffling from the pedestrians. Or, even more preferably, scuttling. Skulking, if one was truly into the spirit of the place.

I wondered, not for the first time, why two high ranking, nauseatingly rich magicians both with more pride and more cufflinks than any individual had a right to had chosen such a dank little hole of a district to set up shop in. I had, of course, spent many pleasant hours casually harassing my current master for information on the nature of this certainly criminal project of his, but my efforts had turned up nothing.

"That amulet is, sir, _mine!_ I do not know how you came to be in ownership over it and nor do I _care!" _

My, my… how that nasally little squeak did bring me back. I felt a sudden pang in my essence. It could have been sadness, I suppose, but I believe it far more likely that I just ate a bad imp.

I rounded a corner, the place it appeared my target was. My orders had been vague. A glance out the window by my master, followed by the observation that Lytton seemed to be having a bit of trouble with the local rabble and an order for me to go sit things straight.

The man around the corner was definitely Lytton. I have never met a mortal that more closely resembled one of those molded gelatin deserts so popular with the stupid and wealthy nowadays. And I work with _magicians. _

Lytton's doughy mass of a face was red and glistening with rage. "Boy!" he yelled, chins a quiver, "I don't know _what _the meaning of this is but-"

"The _meaning _of this, as I have repeatedly stated, and that you cannot seem to get through your thick elephantine mind, is that _you_ are in possession of a rather important artifact given to _me _ by a rather important Ottoman sultan, you pompous, irregularly shaped, lying, stealing…" the urchin paused, rather anticlimactically, "TOAD!"

Lytton is well known to be one of London's most brilliant magicians, but articulation is not among his gifts. He is, even when not in high pressure situations involving frothing little ragamuffins, a man of few words and abundant stammers. "Wh-why! Why you! Why!" he exclaimed, attempting a slow cumbersome whack at the boy with his cane, which the child lithely dodged.

This was, of course, immensely entertaining. A street rat blessed with such moving eloquence was a rare thing, and I would have loved to see how the spectacle ended without my intervention. However, I did have orders.

So I strode up to the boy, who was shirtless, covered in various forms of filth, and carrying himself like he had just singlehandedly conquered the entire Western world. Again, that little pinch at my essence…there was something quite familiar about this kid.

"Look," I said to him, "_Yes _Lytton _is _the human equivalent of a slime mold. We both know that. However, he is actually something of a savant among magicians, and, well, he has power over all manner of unpleasant little things that would just love to gnaw your smart mouthing little head right off. Understand?"

A dark indignant scowl formed on the scrawny urchin's brow, "Bartimeus…" he growled, "I _believe _I can handle this."

Ah.

So _that's _where I'd seen him before.

I guess a little part of my essence had known it all along, but the fact that the little bugger was supposed to be _dead _kept getting in the way of me realizing it.

"No," I said, "Actually, you can't handle this. Because, in case you have failed to notice, you are about fourteen years old, on the absolute lowest rung on the social ladder, and reeking like a sewer. For the love of God, Nat, know when you're beaten! Pop off up a chimney somewhere and I'll bring you a _new _shiny toy, alright?"

"This is all your fault anyway." Nathaniel said with a grubby pout, before storming off into the alley, where a small herd of rabble greeted him. One of them hit him with a stick before she dragged him off behind some barrels.

The world was changing quite drastically for old Natty Boy, that was for certain.

"Why… I never!" Lytton snarled, before turning and waddling back up towards the seedy little building my master had claimed as a temporary headquarters.

The moral of this little anecdote is, of course, to be careful what you wish for. Not five minutes ago I was wishing that my existence on earth would get a bit more interesting, and now… Enter Nathaniel! Urchin or not, if my past experiences were anything to go by, with him around… my existence was going to more interesting by leaps and bounds. The kind of interesting that involves interest in not dying in a uniquely horrible way.

Goodie. The luckiest djinni in London, I am.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N I'm so terribly sorry to the person with the story that has the same title as mine. I am truly horrible with originality, but I assure you it's not intentional, and I'll be retitling as soon as I come up with something.**

"Ow!" Nathaniel yelped, "That _hurt!"_

Lovely rolled here hazel brown eyes and hit him with the stick again, across the back of the head, much harder, "No," she said, "_That _hurt."

Nathaniel's ears rang as his hand shot up to rub the soar bump forming on his head. He glared at the ground.

"Ya nearly got us orl _arrested _or sommat you bloody moron!" Lovely shouted, "That was a _magician _you was dealin' with back there! A _real _one! Not some scrawny little loony git what just _thinks _he is!"

Bill made a move that was an attempt to calm down Lovely, who was turning a rather enraged shade of red under her dirt. She whacked him absent mindedly with her stick and he quickly gave up.

"I _am _a real magician," Nathaniel said, "You are simply to uncultured and ill-bred to tell!" He crossed his arms and sat down on top of the barrel with the least dry rot. "And that man had somehow _taken _an amulet that was _mine!"_

"Woulda been worse if he'd 'ad that demon thing with 'im take your 'ead off," Lovely said pointedly.

Nathaniel rolled his eyes, "What? You mean Bartimeus?" he chuckled, "An unbearable creature, of course, but not one that would ever be able to kill _me! _I know him far too well to be outsmarted by him; he's little more than an overgrown imp, really. Comical." There was the slightest hint of unsureness in Nathaniel's voice as he finished his statement… _would _Bartimeus have killed him if ordered too?

He shuddered slightly. And it wasn't just from the practically dog sized rat that had just scampered casually across his ankles.

"Bloody loony," Lovely sighed, leaning against the side of the building and shooting Nathaniel a glare, "Dunno why I let Bill talk me into botherin' with you inna first place."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at Bill, who had, apparently been trying to hide in the shadows from the wrath of both Lovely and Nathaniel, something that was quite easy for him to do in the dark streets with his blackened skin. "Yes Bill," Nathaniel said coldly, "Please _do _enlighten us as to why you talked her into 'botherin' with me' as she so quaintly put it. You think I'm insane as well, don't you?"

Bill sighed, biting his lip nervously and shuffling his feet, "Look…" he said, "I don't mind that you're a loony, I really don't. I known a lot of good good loonies in my time, I 'ave. But…" he sighed, "You can't just go around doin' stuff like that. I don't care if you want to get your own self burned to a crisp, I mean, I'd feel bad for you, poor bugger, but that aint _my _business. But you go up against people like that magician bloke… you put us _orl _in danger! I mean, even though Lovely's bloody scary and I can 'old me own in a fight… think about Bit!"

Bit was building a lumpy castle out of a mysterious sludge found in the gutter, humming happily.

"I try not to." Nathaniel said with a grimace, "Who ever said I cared whether or not you people were safe anyhow?" he snapped, "You are obviously the morally derelict criminal underbelly of society after all! It would probably be doing the world a favor if someone put this entire street out of its misery."

Lovely's lips pulled back in a snarl, "We was tryin' to do you a _favor_!" she growled jabbing Nathaniel in the chest with her stick "You know how long scrawny kids without shirts last out 'ere alone! Bout two days. You know how long scrawny kids without shirts what are _loonies _and think they're bloody _magicians _last out 'ere alone? 'Bout two hours. So fine. Get on out if you don't like us. See 'ow it goes for you."

"I believe," Nathaniel said with a sneer, "That I will do just that!" He gathered up a great deal of what he thought was dignity, but just looked like idiocy to everyone else, and marched off down the alley, away from the three other children.

Bill looked worried, "Remember, you can orlways come find us again if you change your mind!"

Lovely sent him a look, "You're too bleedin' nice for your own good sometimes, you know that Bill?"

Bill shook his head, "I'm not the only person that knows you orlways ought to be nice to loonies." He grumbled.

Lovely sighed, "I know…" she said, lowering the stick which she had been holding in defensive readiness, "Loonies can't help it…"

Bill shrugged, "Aint just that," he said, "If you aint nice to them, sometimes they come find you an chop you into lickle pieces."

And so London continued. For the rest of the ten hours of the day Bluegate Fields oozed onward with its regular routine unpleasantness. The rats stayed fat and the children stayed thin. Women got stabbed in dark allies and little match girls froze to things and drunks were trampled outside of pubs and all the bodies got dumped into the Thames so the next day things could begin anew. And those who were left alive got the reward of feeling like they must be doing _something _right.

Of course, some weren't left feeling _very _alive.

Nathaniel didn't think it was fair at all to lose consciousness so many times in such a short period. But what he found even more unfair was how that man with the poorly drawn mermaid tattoo (Was that her hair…? Or was that her tail…? And _what _was that growing out of her stomach?) had spoken to him at the wharf. All he had wanted were directions to France! There had been no reason for the man to speak to him as if he were some sort of unimportant child! And then, when he had called him the lazy common dog that he was, he had had the nerve to cuff him around the head and tell him to run along!

Nathaniel had never been so insulted in his life.

He had been exhausted. He had been confused. He had been annoyed at the powerlessness of his situation and resorted to something he would never do as a magician.

He kicked the man in the shin. It hurt his foot.

He remembered hopping up and down on one leg, seeing how enraged the sailor looked… and not much after that.

Now he was in a gutter. (Why did this city have so many bloody gutters? And why were they all so bloody filthy?) He had the horrible feeling that someone had pissed on him again.

"That's 'im, aint it?" He heard a familiar voice sigh from somewhere above him.

"Yeah…" Bill's gravelly voice sighed in return, "Poor bugger."

Nathaniel opened his eyes slowly- he felt like one of them was swollen shut.

Lovely raised a massive eyebrow, "Well?"

"Fine…" Nathaniel grumbled, "Fine, I'll stay with you people…"


	5. Chapter 5

I sighed. I was lying on my back atop a table that my master wasn't currently using, staring up at the ceiling, counting the cobwebs. Things were rather dull for me at the moment. My master and Lytton just emerge out of the other room, from something no doubt something devious and corrupt on the level that only magicians reach. Maybe it's the quicksilver. Maybe it's their little shriveled, under nourished consciences. Who can say? Certainly not I.

But what I _did _know was that my essence was feeling stretched quite thin. I had been in the service of my current master for a little over six months, and, to my sulky dismay, hadn't even been _doing _anything half the time.

First I'd been sent a few countries over* to pick up this little ancient Nordic tome, not more than three pages long1 written in badly spelt old English, from what I saw. I wasn't permitted by my master to read it, but I couldn't resist a peak.

Then three long, momentously dull months had passed before I got anything even remotely interesting to do.

Then I got to pop off to Calcutta for a bit to spy on the French.2 Admittedly, it wasn't a bad time. I got to spend a good deal of my time reminiscing on my younger days in steamier climates.

After that, it was another month of nothing before a brief sojourn to Ireland to pinch yet another book I wasn't allowed to read from another magician. He walked in and was miffed to find me going through his things, and I got to eat him, so I guess it wasn't all that bad.

But it had been months since then. I hadn't had anything to do (that is, if you don't count telling Natty to buzz off) since. I had been forced to spend my time coming up with creative knew ways of irritating my master. And the well was running dry. My repertoire is quite impressive, but it only goes so far.

"Are you quite finished with me?" I said, "This is getting ridiculous. I don't see how it's possible, as completely repulsed I am by your presence, for you to not be sick of me as well. How about you dismiss me and we forget each other's ugly faces forever, hm?"

My master, the very powerful and intimidating as hell Augustina Fairburn, whose face was actually as distinctly un-ugly as one can find, gave me a narrow eyed glare that would have, I think, turned lesser being to jelly on the spot.3

"You will be dismissed, demon," she said coldly, "when I see it fit."

"Yes, yes, I understand _completely,_" I said, "What I'm wondering, you see, is if maybe you could see it fit just a little bit sooner."

"Watch your insolent mouth," Fairburn snarled, "I am in no mood to deal with you right now," she said. And indeed, she didn't look it. Whatever she and Lytton had been up to in the other room, it had flushed her a shade of light pink and made her sweat around the ears. Augustina Fairburn sweats about as frequently as a marble statue.

"You know," I said, "Since you're not in the mood to deal with me, it might just benefit you to not have me around at all. No idea how you could do something like _that _ now, hm? I'll give you a hint. Starts with a d."

Fairburn cast Lytton a gaze with one eyebrow raised, "Well?" she asked him, "Do you think we'll need him around any longer?"

"For the love of _GOD _no!" Lytton gurgled, "His very presence gives me intense indigestion."

"Are you sure it's my presence or the little chemistry experiments I've been conducting in your meals?" I asked. Fairburn shot me a glare. I grinned at her.

"Get rid of it, Augustina…" Lytton growled, glaring, "Otherwise, I fear I may take some rash accent!"

_"Rash action!" _I asked in mock astonishment, "Did you here that, Gussie? You'd better release me before he does something rash like cower at the sight of a shouting street child! God forbid…" I transformed myself into the form of Natty and gave Lytton an accusatory stare.

He narrowed his eyes, and I saw the tiny, metallic soulless clockwork that must comprise a magician's mind turning and ticking. "You _knew _that child, didn't you!" he snapped, "I knew he looked familiar…You'd taken that body before! Hundreds of times!"

He had a point there. Since the days I presumed Nathaniel dead, his form had become one of my favorites, second only to my Ptolemy guise. There was some soothing quality to it. Most of my days with Nathaniel had, at the time, been far from pleasant at the time, but after his death I looked upon them with a sort of nostalgia. There was a certain spark to him, a little flicker of childish compassion behind his eyes. It weakened as he grew older, but was never completely devoured by jaded cynicism as it so often was in my other masters. I had felt, in a certain way, that he was my friend, insomuch as anyone had ever been my friend. I had cared for him, insomuch as I had ever cared for anyone.

Mind you, that's not very much at all. As a matter of fact, perhaps "cared for" really isn't the right word choice there at all. Probably "tolerated" is much more apt. Yes, much more apt, I think. Unfortunate momentary lapse in diction is all. Didn't really care for him at all, in, you know, a technical sense.

Anyhow.

Back to the matter at hand. The matter at being, you see, that Augustina Fairburn was staring at me with eyes that were the gateway to a mind ten times deadlier than all the world's armies combined.

"How is it, then, that you came to know this child's form so well?" she asked, her words clipped and cold.

"Oh, you know, just saw him about town, one day, you know, hassling the well-to-do from the gutters, and I thought to myself, 'What a fine figure of a lad! That lank black hair! That pale cadaverous skin! Those protruding ribs and that bad posture! I just _must _find a way to look like him!'"

Fairburn's lips parted in a small red 'o' for just a minute as is she was going to question me further, but she must have thought it not worth her time, so instead she said, "You wish to be dismissed, then, demon?"

I rolled my eyes, "I established that a few months ago, actually. You _really _should work on your listening skills."

Fairburn rubbed a temple with one hand, "Fine," she said, "I will dismiss you. I believe that, for the remainder of our stay here, we will be needing the work of a much more powerful sort of being… I'm going to do great things." She said with a giggle, her blue eyes sparkling fetchingly. She tossed a lock of long feathery strawberry blonde hair over one shoulder and said, "I'm going to have this city in the palm of my hand. All the people will be my little paper dolls."

Beauty, genius, and megalomania is an unnerving combination.

*To Norway or Finland or somewhere. It was cold. That whole Scandinavia bit really just runs together for me

1Quite the epic work, actually, by the standards of Viking literature.

2 I'm a bit hazy on exactly why. Either the British had laid claim to India and the French wanted it, or the French had it and the British wanted it. Or maybe neither one of them had it and they both wanted it. I think opium came into it somewhere. I can never keep track of all the imperialist eye gouging going on nowadays.

3 I wonder, could that have been what happened to Lytton?


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Again, sorry for the update wait. And again, there's nothing to blame for it but my own lovely procrastination.**

** A/N And while I'm allowing huge amounts of time to pass between story updates… why not a little shameless plugging? I just started writing a new story that will likely have TONS of Bart and Nat in it, however it is sadly tucked away in the little cobweb covered corner of the site dedicated to Sherlock Holmes/ Bartimeus Trilogy crossover, so almost no one has read it or knows it exists. Care to pay it a visit, pretty please?**

"Why can't I go too?" Nathaniel asked, scowling indigantly.

"It aint somethin' you can just run out an _do!" _Bill explained slowly, "You got to, you know, be practiced an' 'sperienced and fit. Burglary aint easy."

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes and surveyed the crew of newly arrived street children who were standing behind. At least five of them were younger than six and one of them had a wooden leg.

"And I take it…" Nathaniel said, "That the rest of you _are _practiced and experienced and fit, then?"

"More or less, yeah." Bill grumbled. The boy with the wooden leg almost fell over.

"You people think I am extremely stupid, don't you?" Nathaniel said bitterly, scowling towards the gutter.

"No," Lovely said, rolling her eyes and stepping up beside Bill, leaning casually on her stick, "You're damn smart. We think you're 'stremely _loony." _She clarified. "Some of the sanest people I know are dumb as rocks, but I could at least rely on 'em in a job."

"And why can't you rely on me?" he asked.

"Cause you're the kind of loony what runs up to _bloody magicians _in the middle of the street an' shouts at them. You do that just _walkin' down the street!_ God knows 'ow you'd manage to botch up a rob'ry."

"But… but…I have skills beyond the reach of any of your rabble! You'd have a great tactical advantage with me on your side."

"Yeah? 'ow?" Lovely asked, glaring steadily at him.

"Well for one thing, I have a deep understanding of the life of the educated elites whom you plan to steal from." Nathaniel began.

"We wanna nick their things, not move in with 'em." Lovely said.

"Well, I can…" Nathaniel, for the first time, found himself at a total loss when it came to listing his skills. Surely, after he had spent years aiding in the governing of an empire, he had learned something that would prove useful in an activity as crass as petty thievery? Errrmmm… an extensive knowledge of magical history? Probably not. The ability to speak Latin? Even less likely. Knowledge of the Czech's tactical advantages and disadvantages? Definitely no.

"I can… read… things…"

"So can Bit, actually," Lovely said, "But we're gonna leave Bit 'ere to."

"So don't feel bad," Bill said, ever the sympathizer, "You won't be lonely."

Bit blew a nose bubble the size of an apple.

"Such a comfort to know." Nathaniel sighed.

Lovely picked her stick up off the ground with a slow shake of her matted head and turned to leave, followed by Bill.

"Wait!" Nathaniel shouted after them, "I can summon demons, you know!" he said triumphantly, "_That _would help!"

Lovely turned back around to face Nathaniel, knitting her black eyebrows in thought, "Yeah." She agreed, "Never did trust demons, but… I don't reckon one what _you _made could do too much 'arm."

Nathaniel wasn't sure, as he often wasn't sure with Lovely, whether he was being insulted or not, "Of course not," he said. He guessed, by the way the crowd of urchins was giggling, that he had been.

"Fine then," Lovely announced, "It's a deal. You conjure us up a demon, you can come with us." She said with a crooked smirk, in the tone of someone gently teasing a naïve child.

"Well…" Nathaniel muttered slowly, looking at the ground beside him.

"We're waitin', loony." Said Lovely.

"Errrrmmm… well it's not as if I could _now._ It takes time, you know. It's, well, it's an art form, really."

Lovely rolled her eyes in a way that made Nathaniel wish he could still kick street urchins without getting beat into a near stupor. Then she gave the children behind her a simple nod, and they turned and scampered like rats down the alleyway, vanishing into the fog.

Bit was trying to get its foot in its mouth.

This was degrading.

"Mmrr," Nathaniel said softly. He had been making small whimpering noises on a fairly regular basis for the last thirty minutes hoping that he could get the point across that he was thoroughly famished, and maybe some passing good Samaritan would be inspired to go buy him a meat pie or something. The meat pies, which were being sold from a cart by a club footed man far on the other side of the alley, smelled heavenly to Nathaniel. If he could remember the last time he had eaten, they would have probably smelled like mildly rancid goat meat, because that's what they were in actuality. But Nathaniel was as hungry as he could remember being in a very long time, and it was causing him some degree of mild olfactory impairment.

"Mmrrr…" he said again. No one paid him the slightest bit of attention except for Bit who said, "Moo," then poked him and told him it was his turn again.

This was getting ridiculous.

The others must have been gone for _hours _now. He glanced at the face of Big Ben behind him in the distance. They'd been gone for twenty eight minutes.

Nathaniel glared at his feet. They thought they could just snub him like that. They thought he was crazy! He, a highly respected highly accomplished magician prodigy, was being dismissed by _commoners _as nothing more than a common mental case! They didn't even believe he could summon! _Him! _The great John Mandrake! It was enough, _he_ thought, to make any well-bred magician want to weep.

Nathaniel knew _he _certainly did, at least.

Something would have to be done. He might be without home, without name, and without money, but he was still a magician, and he would not simply sit in a gutter and wallow in his self-pity. If he did that, he really _would _be nothing more than a commoner.

"Bit…" he said slowly, "Why don't you and I play a game?"

"Game?" Bit asked hopefully, pulling a spider out of his nose.

"Yes…" Nathaniel said, "A game! A, erm, a… very, very, _fun _game, at that!"

Bit grinned and gurgled.

"Here's how you play…" Nathaniel said, "The _first _thing you do… is go find me a bit of rosemary… and some chalk."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N Thanks for the reviews everyone! I'm off on summer break now, so I'm going to try and update much more frequently.**

All that could be said for it was that it wasn't the worst conditions I'd ever been summoned under, but it was definitely a few hundred golden gilded candles short of the best. Obviously a disappointment, in my book. If someone stuck-up magician is taking up my valuable time I could have otherwise spent pleasantly in the Other Place to do their petty bidding, the least they can do is have some decently ominous lighting, some decently ornate decoration, some decently exotic incense. Even if a properly ceremonial summoning is beyond their means, the least a magician can do is get dressed up for the occasion (little irks me more than a magician that summons in his pajamas), or at the _absolute _least, recite the incantations with enough dramatic flair befitting the entrance of one as great as yours truly.

All that is what a decent summoning should consist of.

What a decent summoning should _not _consist of is a pentacle drawn with badly made bone-chalk on some wet cobblestones. Pinches of household cook seasonings mixed into little heaps of smoldering soot should not be considered acceptable excuses for incense. The magician doing the summoning should not be wearing nothing but some thread bare brown trousers, and should not be partially coated in unidentifiable brown muck. One should never, ever, smell that way while summoning.

As a matter of fact, it was such a miserable attempt that I'm sure there was a breach in the binding somewhere. But I didn't look for it. For one thing, my summoner looked rather bony and unsatisfying, for another thing, after all I had and all I had sacrificed to get the little brat up and living again, I was _not _about to eat him.

I wrinkled my scaly nose and flicked the feathers on my tale in distaste, "Really, Natty, for our grand reunion I would have expected something a little less… squalid."

Nathaniel scowled down at the ground with an amusing mixture of shame and aggravation, "It was the best I could manage, demon."

I sighed, shaking my head slowly, "Really came down in the world, have you, Nat? Tell me, what was the tragic flaw that brought you down from your former glory? Was it a woman? The drink? I know… it was your obsession with ridiculously large sleeve cuffs, wasn't it?"

The urchin magician's lips thinned with annoyance. It was a remarkable task, really, considering that he has nothing too noticeable in the way of lips anyhow. "It wasn't my fault…" he grumbled. "I died, you see."

I did see, of course. I had seen. And it was not something I had enjoyed seeing. But was I about to feed Natty Boy's chronically swollen ego by telling him so? Not a chance in hell.

"Ah…" I said, "Three headed scaly fellow with bad taste in literature, was it?"

Nathaniel nodded sullenly.

"I thought as much," I said, "This looks like his style…But it's nice to see you can still maintain your magical work in such a condition…I see you've even found an apprentice." I smirked, nodding to some little bundle of dirty fabric that was squatting beside Nathaniel, nibbling a maggot.

Nathaniel gave me a dirty look, "That's Bit…" he sighed, "It's repulsive. Just ignore it."

"I hate to break it to you, Natty Boy… the little creature may be repulsive, but at least he doesn't smell like a privy."

"I've _tried _to get it off!" the adolescent whined, "But all the water here smells the same way and it just gets worse!"

"Shame…" I sighed, "Guess you're a little low on silver cufflinks as well. Oh the hardship. So, Nat, what's the orders? Want me to help you sweep chimneys?"

"No." Nathaniel said briefly, then bit his lip, taking a deep breath and watching a rat scamper across the ground. His eyes shown with something akin to shame, an emotion I was definitely not accustomed to seeing on him.

"Oh come now, Natty…" I said, "You can tell me. I promise I won't embarrass you."

"Really?" he asked, raising a cynical eyebrow.

I snorted a laugh, "Of course not!" I said, "I love embarrassing you. Although in your current condition it would be a bit like kicking an injured puppy. An injured _smelly _puppy."

Nathaniel stomped his foot, a gesture I hadn't seen from him since he decided to become a stoic and boring man of politics. "Would you just leave off about how I _smell? _How I smell is not relevant!"

"Whatever you say…." I sighed, "But please, it really _would _be convenient if you could just let me know whether you actually want me to do something for me or just summoned me for the engaging conversation."

He turned his gaze to the ground, and this time I _knew _it was shame. I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for him, after all we'd been through. Any other time, I would have given my right tentacle to see Nathaniel's pride even momentarily dropped, but now it was just… empty. Nathaniel's pride was his life blood. His arrogance was what kept him full and healthy. Without it… it was a bit like a bird with the wings torn off really.

And then there was the fact that he was, despite what he had been before, an impoverished street child. He was wet and shirtless in a night that was rapidly getting colder; I noticed that he was turning blue under the fingernails. He had no shoes and his feet were bleeding from the rocks and the broken glass that littered the street. From the quiet little corner of the alley we were tucked in, surrounded only by empty crates and rodents, I could hear his stomach growl.

It was heart wrenching.

Or, you know, it would have been had I been some sentimental mortal creature always getting jostled about by empathetic emotions. Damn glad I'm not.

"Just… follow me, alright?" Nathaniel said.

"But of course, master," I told him, as he started off down the alleyway. I kept any usual sarcasm out of my voice and saw his lumpy spine straighten, if not to its politician's stance at least close.

"You know," I said, as I kept a watch for cutthroats and similar unsavory people lurking in the thick London fog, "It really was quite impressive. There's a very small number of magicians that can summon using such impromptu means. I always knew you were a bit different, Natty."

While he said nothing, a smile tugged around the edges of Nat's pale face. The next time he passed a rat, he looked down his nose at it as if it was a secretarial underling in a conference.

If I cared for humans at all, I might have felt rather warm and fuzzy right then.


End file.
